What I Mean To Say Is
by c1araoswa1d
Summary: What happened between the Doctor finding Clara inside of the Dalek, and them making their great escape to the Tardis? We might never know, but I needed to explore a what-if...


The Doctor doesn't have his Sonic, so he has to improvise, but Clara's used to it. She's seen the look on his face as he's thinking through a problem a hundred times already – like Missy said, so many calculations; so little time, and yet somehow he wins because he knows he will – but for some reason it's just a little different today. She manages a smile and he stops his thinking for just a moment to stare at her. He's done it quite a lot in a very short amount of time, but this time it's with a curious expression on his face Clara can't quite pinpoint the emotions behind.

"What's on your mind, right now?" She questions.

His eyes widen, "Here, _now_ ," he nods, "This is when you want to ask this question."

Clara smiles and replies, "I've spent all day with Missy. So, yes. Here, _now_ , I want to ask this question."

"Sitting inside a Dalek casing," he tells her, "With its nanotech reaching and burrowing further into your mind as the seconds tick by."

She merely folds her hands, processing and filing away the worry in his voice before she asks again, "What's on your mind, right now?"

"You're alive," he tells her simply.

On a chuckle, she looks to the ground as his fingers continue their light pressing at her temples. Clara doesn't tell him how it hurts. How it's gone from a mild discomfort when Missy first pressed them in, to a scalding heat rolling over her head in waves that had gotten increasingly painful from the moment she laid eyes on him. She doesn't want him to be afraid – not after the fear she knows he's felt, thinking first that he might die, and then that maybe she had. She could still hear that anger in his voice, demanding she be returned to him.

That tiny _fading_ spark of hope that she was still alive.

"That's it," Clara teases, wincing when he pushes too hard. "Just that I'm alive."

He bows his head and she hears the nervous laugh that escapes him, can see the sweat dotting his brow as he glances up again and nods. " _That's it_ , she says," he tells her playfully. "As though her life meant so little."

"I didn't think it meant so much," she scoffs, watching him smile, because they both understood what he'd been willing to do in her name; they both knew what he'd _almost_ done because he thought she was dead. He wears a sad smile now, and she finds it unnerves her, it all unnerves her too much, and then she states softly, "You don't know how to unplug me, do you."

He shrugs, head shaking lightly to respond, "It's never truly been done, at least not to my knowledge – not without death."

"So go," she prompts. "Run..."

The Doctor's head tilts forward as his eyes close, stopping her words, and Clara takes a breath when his forehead touches hers warmly. He makes a sound, something like a whimper, she thinks, and he hisses, "Don't you dare. Not after today; not sitting in this."

She can feel his fingers dropping and snaking around the sides of her neck, holding her delicately in a way he hasn't before and she lets out a shuddered breath, telling him honestly, "Doctor, you're scaring me."

"Think, Clara," he breathes against her lips, "Dalek technology is worming its way through your mind and you have to stop it, but no one ever has – so think, think, _think_ ," the words taper off, more a command to himself than to her, and she closes her eyes to blink away new tears, feeling them splash against her thumb and knee as the pads of his fingers work the skin at the base of her skull.

"Love," she starts to tell him simply, but the word never emerges fully. She thinks it and moans against the pain it induces.

"Love's not in their database, not in the way we think it," the Doctor whispers, "But neither was mercy." He nods against her, "Put it there. Think _harder_ , Clara, _push back_ against their hatred with all of the love you can muster and kick this tin can off." He laughs, but it breaks and Clara shakes her head.

She tries to think it, she wants to say it.

"Exterminate," the word escapes from her lips before she can stop it.

"They're fighting back, trying to take over," he explains. He laughs again, "They're onto us now."

"Seek," Clara breaths. "Locate," her head shakes. "Destroy," she growls. Her hands come up and she grips the Doctor's wrists as she grinds her teeth together against the burning in her head. Her knees feel locked together, immobile, and the muscles in her legs tighten with her need to push herself free from the seat.

The Doctor's thumbs stroke gently at the space in front of her ears and he sighs, "Love, Clara."

The emotion, hearing the Doctor say those two words, sends a stream of blinding fire through her mind, but she washes it away with the sound of her mother's voice, telling her a story – an old memory she thought she'd forgotten. She washes it away with the proud look in her father's eyes as she kicks a football into the netting on a field. She washes it away with her Gran's smile and Artie's laugh and her student's cheers at the end of a long day. Clara winces and then her hands slip up the Doctor's arms, fingers finding his neck and she squeezes.

She can feel his pulse, she'd never thought to feel for it, but it pounds underneath her fingertips as she applies more pressure. He makes a sound of distress, and she feels the cough he can't expel, but the Doctor doesn't stop her, merely remains and she understands – he won't retaliate, not against her, because he believes she can fight it. He believes, she smiles, _she can win_.

Her fingers loosen slightly and she says, "I."

It's a simple word. Just a letter really. But it's her word, her letter, and she knows what comes after – what Missy wanted to make sure she couldn't say to him. She smiles and her hands press their way down to grip his shoulders, squeezing at his flesh through the layers of his clothes as she listens to him breathing harshly, getting the air back into him. Her forehead presses harder into his and she can feel him nodding against her, encouraging her as the Dalek she sits in whines, its hinges attempting to close as she demands they remain open.

Clara hears him utter quietly, "Think."

She sees him at her doorstep in his silly monk suit with his gaping smile and his flopping hair. She sees him dancing about the console, laughing and pointing at her through a story. She sees his new face frowning, but nodding, a quiet affirmation of his acceptance of her presence. She sees him reaching for her hand, a face full of hope as snow falls past a window at their side...

"Love," Clara says, the word slowly creeping past her lips.

His head lifts from hers and there's a soft tugging at her temples, but she doesn't look. She doesn't move. She can still feel warmth swimming around in her mind, biting at bits on occasion when she tries to remember his faces and his touches and his words. The Doctor lets out a breath and Clara reaches for him, falling forward to collapse into his arms on the ground just outside of the Dalek and she lays her forehead into his chest, still feeling as though there were tendrils of lukewarm water lapping at her.

But it's better, it's easing.

"You," she breathes into him, unsure if he's heard her.

She doesn't care if he did.

She _hopes_ he did.

Lifting her head, she looks to the satisfied smile frozen on his face and she feels his arms wrapped around her body, holding her securely atop him, and she laughs. She laughs and rolls to his right and she falls onto her back as he inches up on his elbow to lean over her, watching her curiously until she closes her eyes and tries to regain her breath. Clara feels his fingertips trail over the spots on each of her temples and he sighs.

"The remnants of nanotech have repaired the entry wounds," he tells her softly. "There's no telling if there'll be lasting effects."

"An eyestalk," Clara rasps, giving him a wry smile.

She feels his lips warmly at her forehead unexpectedly and then the building gives a shake. Her heart is pounding and she knows they should be running, but when she opens her eyes, he's still lying calmly at her side, staring down at her in a sort of wondrous disbelief. I'm alive, she thinks, and she watches him nod, knows he's thinking the same.

"Doctor," she manages, "We really should be running."

His features shift, something like a manic grin spreading on his lips now. Confidence, she can see, seeping back into him; coloring his skin again and brightening his eyes. She groans when he helps her up, and when they're standing, the Doctor's hands still gentle at her waist, he softens once more, looking her over, eyes lingering at the spaces on each side of her head. Worried, she knew.

"Love, Clara," he tells her again simply, his middle finger touching her right temple. The Doctor offers her a warm smile and his hand curves to just barely touch her cheek – to hover just beside her skin – as he releases a content sigh. A sigh that warms her heart and steadies her legs underneath her because she knows the words he cannot say; the words he locks inside himself, and somewhat like a Dalek, emerge as others.

Tilting her head slightly, pressing her cheek to his palm, she nods into him as she watches his body relax. Clara reaches up to take his hand and she watches him shift away to pick up the Dalek gun. " _Always_ love, Doctor," she tells him quietly just before they break into a run.


End file.
